92 



came within about ten yards of the top of a steep deeli 

 A'ity. Here the fire collected, as in a reservoir, to sop- 

 ply a cascade, w hich rushed down from thence in a 

 channel of more than twenty feet wide, and about two < 

 huiid red yards in length, with a fall of at least fifty feet. 

 Alter this the stream was less rapid, but grew wider, and 

 spread several miles from its source. It now presented 

 a very different scene from what it afforded before. 

 The cascade (says an eye-witness) looks like melted gold, 

 and tears off large bodies of old lava (so they term the 

 incrustation) which float down the stream, till the in- 

 tenseness of the IK a; lifts them fioni the bottom. But 

 in the lower country, it divides iuto smaller streams, 

 running with less rapidity : and yet with such violence, 

 that it drives the strongest stone fences before it, and 

 lighting the trees like torches, affords a most extraordi- 

 nary, though dismal spectacle. 



On December 23, 17^0, about two in the morning, a 

 violent shock of an earthquake was felt, near Mount 

 Vesuvius. Some time arter, some countrymen being at 

 work, four or five miles from it, perceived the ground 

 near them on a sudden heave and gape, like dough that 

 is rising. At the same time they observed smoke issuing 

 from the clefts. They immediately fled, till they thought 

 they were out of danger. And then looking back, saw 

 the water of a cistern, near which they had been at work, 

 spout out to a great height. This was succeeded by a 

 large discharge of fiery matter from the mouth of the 

 cistern, and from four other openings, attended with a 

 dreadful noise and explosion of burning stones, On a 

 sudden all the fiery streams united in one, flowed impe- 

 tuously down the mountain, and gliding quick as light- 

 ning, presently covered all|the adjacent lands. Mean- 

 time the whole mountain shook greatly, and a fixed pil- 

 lar of smoke issued out of the main aperture, which ri- 

 sing to a certain height, then dissolved into ashes, and 

 fell like rain all over the mountain. At the same time 

 an immense quantity of burning stones was thrown out* 



The fiery stream continued running down the inouu- 



